5.
Heat up 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a wok or frying pan. Add the well drained tofu, and scramble with several cooking chopsticks held together.

6.
Keep scrambling and stir-frying the tofu over medium heat, until the texture resembles ground meat. Add 1 teaspoon of soy sauce and stir-fry quickly. Remove from the pan.

7.
Wipe out the pan, add some vegetable oil and heat up again. Add the eggplant and stir-fry over medium heat. When the eggplant is wilted and has started to brown, take it out.

8.
Heat up the pan again, add all the ☆ ingredients and stir-fry over medium heat. When it's fragrant add the carrot and continue stir-frying.

9.
When the carrot has wilted, re-add the cooked tofu and eggplant and stir-fry quickly. Add the combined ◆ ingredients and simmer over low heat for about 2 minutes.

10.
When the sauce has reduced a bit, add some katakuriko dissolved in water to thicken the sauce. Swirl in some sesame oil to finish.

11.
Transfer to serving plates, top with the green onions and it's done. If you like it more spicy, you can drizzle on some ra-yu spicy sesame oil.

Story Behind this Recipe

I wanted to eat some mapo eggplant but didn't have any ground meat! That's when I remembered that there's a method of cooking tofu so that it has the texture of ground meat, so I tried it out to in this version of mapo eggplant.

Helpful Hints

User 4 or more cooking chopsticks held together to stir fry the tofu until it has the texture of ground meat. Adjust the amount of doubanjiang to taste. If you add some sancho pepper it becomes a dish for adults only. It's delicious just with eggplant and tofu, but I recommend adding carrots and bell peppers.